If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Green Practices Fuel Consumer Loyalty

Craft brewers love to tout their commitment to environmental sustainability. As 21st-century artisans, many bring an earth-first ethos to their work. Those who don’t … well, they know their consumers—especially Millennials—want to support companies that support the planet. This means that well-intentioned claims to responsible environmental stewardship are so ubiquitous in the craft brewing community that they’ve become white noise.

But in a crowded market of more than 6,000 American craft breweries, at least one major eco-investment does differentiate the doers from the talkers: solar power. With the Solar United Neighbors (SUN) pro-solar organization counting just 117 solar-powered U.S. breweries, this form of alternative energy does allow for legitimate bragging rights.

“It’s so great for marketing,” says Thor Cheston, co-owner of Washington, D.C.’s Right Proper Brewing, who installed solar panels at his production facility last October. “We use #SolarPoweredBeer on social media; anything we post about our solar program always gets a tremendous amount of likes and shares.”

To help promote this point of pride, SUN is running a Brews from the Sun contest that asks drinkers to vote for their favorite solar brewery. Until August 18, Internet users can show love for any of nominated 40 breweries by visiting the website, clicking on a brewery’s logo and filling out a short form. There’s only one vote allowed per email address, and the winner will receive promotion to SUN's mailing list of more than 50,000 solar supporters and a full-page ad in Beer Advocate magazine.

The breweries range from old (Hale’s Ales, circa 1983) to new (Wise Man Brewing, circa 2017), small (Offshore Ale Co.) to large (Stone Brewing) and east (Maine Beer Co.) to west (Maui Brewing). But they all share one thing in common: serious savings on their energy bills.

“As soon as we turned the power on, our utility bills were halved,” says Cheston, who took out a loan to buy and install $235,000 worth of panels for the roof and a metal awning to cover the patio.

He expects his more than 70 kilowatts of solar power to make his brewery 85% energy efficient this year. What’s more, his partner, who owns the building, can sell credits for the surplus energy the panels produce for a profit. Though energy production depends dearly on how much sun shines per month, since the beginning of the year, that's totaled almost $1,600 worth of credits (minus brokerage fees) sold to an exchange that deposits the profits into a bank account designated by the seller.

“It’s a huge boon for us,” Cheston says, noting that manufacturing in general and brewing in particular uses a tremendous amount of energy, and thus, expense. “When it comes to utilities you (usually) feel like you’re at the mercy of a higher being you have no control over.”

But once breweries go solar, their energy costs and environmental impact go way down.

Stone, for instance, saved $150,000 on energy bills by powering 20% of its Escondido, California, brewery and restaurant with solar in 2016 and kept 1.5 million pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the environment. Up in Sonoma County, Bear Republic Brewing displays its minute-to-minute solar energy production on its website and shows how many laps around the Monaco Grand Prix that would fuel. Cofounder and race car driver Richard Norgrove Jr. might take pride in knowing that by 6 PM Pacific time on Tuesday, he could have completed 23 laps.